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I looked at him.

“Well, how do I say it,” I said, thinking on how to explain. “Let’s say that it was… an emotional period, I could say, when it was time for my first blessing. I firmly opposed it, until when they tied me and dragged me to a Priest.”

“Fucking Priest,” I said, remembering his damned face.

“Well, I refused the Class anyway, and after that there were also many reasons that kept me from giving in during the following years, some more important than others. For example, I would detest giving credit to the gods for all I have achieved; everything I have, I gained it with blood, sweat, and effort.” And now that I knew that the whole ‘human limits’ thing that the church spoke was crap, there was even less reason to credit them for that.

“In addition,” I continued, “There’s also the not-so-small problem of Priests being able to just reset your Class at will.”

I saw Zeph wanted to say something, so I added, “Don’t even start. I already heard the whole spiel several times.”

“Not all Priests have the Skill, only those higher level than you can do that, and it’s not easy, and a whole lot of other crap. Point is, they can,” I said with finality.

I could see he didn’t agree with me, but I never expected him to.

“To summarize, power is fine and all, but I don’t trust a power that’s not mine. Moreover, there’s also that damned slave contract. There’s hardly anything worse than that in my opinion,” I said, shaking my head.

There was one thing that was much worse, but I wasn’t going to tell him. I already tried many times and I never had good reactions when I talked about that.

“Now, as I said, there are also other reasons, but I don’t want to waste any more time on this. Finish your lesson so you can both go to sleep,” I said, ending my explanations.

He stared at me silently for a while.

“Fine then,” he said in the end, turning to Freya.

“Oh, before you continue,” I suddenly said, “Nice to know about the whole percentage thing — I don’t think anyone around here knows the numbers with that precision — but maybe you should keep things simpler.”

I pointed at Freya. “I doubt she knows what a percentage is. I barely know that, too.”

He looked at me dumbfounded while Freya nodded.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. We were slaves. We were only taught the basics to interact with the System of the gods, which means some reading and simple math, like addition, subtraction, and, if they’re nice enough, some multiplications and divisions. I know a few more things because I learned from other gladiators that only recently became slaves, that’s why I have a vague understanding of how percentages work,” I explained to him.

And thinking about it, maybe I should take some time to learn math better. Who knows if I’ll get scammed somewhere because I don’t know numbers.

“Ah, I see,” he said, nodding.

He looked a bit ashamed maybe, or embarrassed, but I wasn’t sure.

“I’ll keep things simple then,” he said as he turned to her.

“Every ten levels,” he continued, “There is a quest before you can proceed, that differs based on the Class. For example, at Level 10 a smith may be asked to forge a knife.

“The first quest is never hard, but the following ones get progressively more difficult as the level increases.

“To simplify what I said before, you just need to know that after you pass a quest, you get more than twice as strong as before. Practically, the difference in power between a level thirty and a level thirty-one is more than the difference between a level twenty-one and a level thirty.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The disparity was huge indeed, I thought to myself.

“Was that clear enough?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

He nodded, satisfied, before continuing.

“The next thing you need to know is that there are two ways to level. One is by using your skills, the other is by killing,” he said, lifting two fingers.

“Killing helps you level much faster compared to just training with Skills, and it’s also why most high-level people are usually those that started out with Classes like Hunter, Warrior, Soldier, etc. Of course, killing people or monsters is more dangerous than doing embroidery, so you also need to keep that into account,” he explained.

Unless you die of blood loss after poking your fingers too many times, I thought, amused.

Maybe some idiot activated a bleeding Skill and accidentally bleed himself to death that way.

Thinking about idiots made me think of that stupid noble.

“I heard that nobles that want to level faster just have to kill imprisoned beasts without doing too much training,” I interrupted, “Or they go into the wild with a squad of soldiers and kill cornered beasts.”

They had it quite easy.

He nodded in agreement. “That’s one way to gain Experience speedily, but it’s still not advisable to keep it up long term. To complete a quest they’d also need to be competent, and for that, they would need to have good Skill Levels.”

“They may be able to complete a few quests anyway,” he continued, “But it would be hard for them to pass the level thirty quest and I guess it would be nearly impossible to pass the one at level forty. Also, you need a humongous amount of Experience at higher levels. Hoping to advance by just killing caged beasts is a pipe dream.”

He paused before saying, “And that’s why you’ll need to choose your Skills correctly. Especially in the beginning.”

“From what I’ve seen in this kingdom, people only choose one or two skills after each quest and keep it at that. While you may be able to level faster in the beginning that way, it’s an absolute waste that will greatly slow you down at higher levels,” he sighed while rubbing his eyes.

He lowered his hand and looked at me and Freya.

“This seems to be enough to give her an idea. We can talk about the rest later… I hope she’ll make the right choice,” he said to me while stressing the last few words.

I snorted.

Yes, yes, I’m the stupid one. I know, I thought sarcastically.

“Well, goodnight, and thanks for the lesson,” I said, waving at him.

“You’re welcome. Goodnight,” he said, getting up.

“Thank you. Goodnight,” said Freya.

He nodded and walked towards his tent.

After he went inside his tent, I put away my sword and looked at the girl.

“Do you mind if we sit there for a moment? I need to tell you something,” I said, pointing towards a rock a few meters away.

She needed to sleep, but I had to say a few words without Zeph listening. I didn’t think he would hear from here, but I wanted to be sure.

She looked at me for a moment before nodding, so I got up and went to sit on the rock, with her following me.

“So,” I said, unsure I should begin, “Do you remember before when I told Zeph why I didn’t choose a Class?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said.

I said it a few minutes ago. Stupid question.

“Well, I didn’t lie,” I said while picking up a branch from the ground. “But I also didn’t tell him the whole truth.”

Maybe I will, when we reach the end of our journey, or maybe not. I didn’t want to travel with someone who thought I was crazy, or worse, who’d try to kill me.

There was a low chance of the second option, but better not to risk it.

“When it was time for me to have my First Blessing, I was going through a pretty bad period,” I started my recounting.

“At the time I hated the church and the nobles to the bone, and since I considered the gods responsible at least in part for the current system, a good chunk of my hatred went to them too,” I said, playing around with the branch.

I took out one of the knives on my belt and started peeling the branch. I needed to move my hands for some reason.

Freya was listening silently beside me.

“Maybe that’s why I was able to notice it when I was dragged in front of the Priest for my First Blessing,” I told her as I whittled away the branch.

Truthfully, I didn’t need to say this.

It wasn’t something I should talk about to anyone, probably. I tried already in the past and was treated like a madman. One guy even tried to kill me, but maybe that was my fault — I knew that he was the religious type.

Was I really mad? I wasn’t sure, but I was past the point of caring by now.

Why was I telling her this then? I didn’t know. Maybe it was just to avoid future regrets. And even if she thought I was mad, she was just another on the list.

“So, can you imagine? You’re there burning with hatred and rage and suddenly, there’s some power washing over you, calming you down, making you feel happy, making you feel small and big at the same time, making you feel ecstatic… Making your thoughts change,” I said, gripping the branch tightly. “I almost didn’t notice it.”

I felt so repulsed by the memory that I could hardly move.

“I hated them. Then I didn’t. Then all the reasons I had to hate them were disappearing. They wanted to make me think… they made me think they were there to help me. I just had to accept them,” I said, as I looked at the crushed branch in my hand.

It would have been so easy.

"... I just had to let them inside."

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